By Malcolm McKellar

A hot and humid day with a light mirage, but with dense passing clouds to complicate sighting, made for interesting conditions for a Double 400m Competition on Saturday afternoon. 

The Full-bore Target Rifle class was taken by Mal McKellar with a respectable 101 points (out of a possible 105) and 7 centre-bulls, over Neil Attwood 2nd on 95 points and also 7 centre-bulls, and Mark Goulston 3rd with 75/1.

Saturday 21st March was hot and humid with little air movement and just a slight mirage, but with dense passing clouds to shade the target mantlet intermittently, complicating the sighting picture.

In the first 400 metre match Mark Goulston opened the Full-bore Target Rifle (.308 cal., peep-sight, manually-supported) competition with 4-point ‘inner’ and 3-point ‘bird’ sighters, both of which he cut. Unfortunately, his first-to-count was a 2-point outer, and though he found the bullseye for 5 points on his 2nd pull, his 3rd was another outer and his 5th a 3-point ‘bird’. 

He steadied over the second half of the match, with a string of 4-point ‘inners’ punctuated by a centre-bullseye as he stopped chasing the aiming mark and concentrated on a consistent sight picture, closing with a disappointing 37 points (out of 50 this first, 10-shot match) and 1 centre-bull. 

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Neil Attwood followed, bracketing the centre with his two sighting shots; he opened business with a 5-point bullseye, and with a rock-steady ‘hold’ closed with another bull and three fine centre-bulls, however the intermittent shadowing of the target by the dense passing clouds which optically distorts the target position vertically, saw him just outside the bulls-eye ring too many times, and he closed with a frustrating 45/3. 

Mal McKellar was last to take the mound and he too bracketed the target centre with his two sighters. 

His first-to-count was a bullseye, which he followed with five more bulls and four centre-bulls, dropping just one point on his eighth pull when failing to adjust for the sudden deep shadow over the target, and he closed with a fine 49/4 to take the match on his first return to the mound in four months.

In the second 400 metre match Goulston again opened for Full-bore Target Rifle; once again he struggled to find consistency with his early shots, but, as with the first match settled into obtaining a repeating sight picture in the latter half and, though the points were not what was hoped for, he finished with a much more encouraging grouping to set 38 points (of a possible 55 this eleven shot second match) with no centre-bulls, to beat. Next down, Attwood cut his two 4-point sighters and opened with two excellent 5-point centre-bulls; a shadow-induced wayward 3-point ‘bird’ on his 6th pull marred an otherwise match-winning performance and he closed with an improved percentage on 50 points with 4 centre-bulls. 

McKellar was again last of the Full-bore shooters down, and, picking up where he left off in the first match found two centre-bullseyes as his sighters; he failed to continue this form however, pulling three 4-pointers in an up-and-down performance to close with a none-the-less match winning 52/3, and taking the day with a combined 101/7.

The Club meets every Saturday at 1:00pm at the Mossman & District Rifle Club Range mid-way between Port and Mossman, and visitors are always welcome. We thank Ron Schild for his excellent marking.